Chapter 823 - 247: Old Wang’s Story
The little girl raised a brood of chickens, four ducks, and two large geese in the yard.
Every time Wang Guishan came, he would bring a lot of grain and some elixirs he personally made to help the little girl enhance her physique and strengthen her body’s meridians.
He taught the little girl a body refining technique for strength and fitness.
He even taught the little girl a cultivation technique, but unfortunately, the little girl’s talent for cultivation was too weak.
Initially, she spent a full six months without being able to grasp it. This was insufficient talent. Even if one went to the capital’s governing place to receive free cultivation technique education, one was only given three months. After three months, if one couldn’t understand, they would be sent back as a mortal.
The little girl hadn’t grasped it in six months.
Wang Guishan consoled the little girl. The little girl outwardly accepted Wang Guishan’s comfort, and when Wang Guishan was there, she behaved normally, as if she had resigned to give up cultivation.
She would wash clothes for Wang Guishan—even though Wang Guishan could use a cleaning spell to wash clothes with a wave of his finger, she insisted on washing them hand with her calloused little hands.
When Wang Guishan came to see her, she would kill one of her chickens and make a pot of chicken soup for Wang Guishan, then move a stool to sit beside him, hands supporting her cheeks, watching him eat.
With no hope for cultivation, she didn’t say it, but she practiced tirelessly day and night. She even meditated without sleeping.
Until one time, Wang Guishan came down the mountain to see her, entered the house, and found the little girl had fainted inside.
Emaciated, just a breath away from death.
Wang Guishan saved the little girl. When she woke up, her face streaming with tears, she looked at Wang Guishan’s grave expression and sighed, pleading with Wang Guishan: "Don’t be mad at me. I won’t insist anymore. I won’t harm myself anymore. I will no longer cultivate. I will live peacefully as a mortal, serve you for a few decades, and when I die decades later, you can bury me at the foot of the nearby mountain..."
That time, Wang Guishan made the first major decision of his life.
He thought it over all night, and the next morning he told the little girl something: "It’s agreed, you’ll serve me for a lifetime, and my lifetime is not so short as just a few decades."
This time, after Wang Guishan returned to the mountain, he began crazily tinkering with various things, elixirs, magical artifacts...
He visited the little girl less frequently, the frequency became lower.
Only estimating the amount of grain stored at the little girl’s house, he would only come down the mountain when the food was about to run out.
The people in the sect noticed that Wang Guishan, this formerly kind and generous junior brother, had suddenly changed.
In the past, when fellow disciples asked him to help fix a magical artifact, he would accept with a smile, without charging much, and would simply wave it off with a smile, saying: "If Senior Brother wants to thank me, next time you travel, bring back some interesting herbs for me."
In the past, when fellow disciples encountered difficulties and complained to him, he would smile and slip a few of his crafted elixirs into their hands, smiling, "If Senior Brother appreciates me, bring me some good food from other places when you go out next time."
Because of this disposition, his room always had many strange and curious things that fellow disciples brought back for him from their travels.
There were rare flowers and plants, seeds of immortal plants, rare and exotic minerals, and scarce delicacies...
These things indeed gave him a lot of help and knowledge on the road of studying medicine, alchemy, and artifact refining.
Gradually, though, the people noticed that this junior brother had become practical.
When someone asked him for help, he would grit his teeth and then grudgingly say with a difficult smile: "Senior Brother... wants this thing fixed, I’ll charge just thirty coins."
Many things, when put plainly, are just like this.
If it’s affection, then it’s affection.
If it’s a transaction, then... there’s no affection.
Wang Guishan’s popularity gradually became not as good as before—although not bad, gradually, among fellow disciples, there were fewer who often praised him and said good things about him.
And the fellow disciples willing to be good friends with him also gradually had less contact.
But finally, one day, Wang Guishan came down the mountain and went to the little girl’s yard.
He gave the little girl an elixir.
A Spirit Communication Pill.
The kind that can boost even a waste’s Yuan Qi Affinity for a short time and greatly increase the probability of entering cultivation.
This elixir, Chen Yan had bought before. One pill, ten thousand jade coins.
Wang Guishan, a small disciple in the sect’s outer sect, saved up ten thousand coins, bought this Spirit Communication Pill, and gave it to the little girl.
A few days later, the little girl entered cultivation and became a First Realm Cultivator.
Three months later, the little girl went up the mountain to participate in a selection exam for prospective disciples of the outer institute.
Wang Guishan crafted some elixirs for her, some to enhance physical strength, some to nourish the Primordial Spirit, some to clear the mind, and others to boost Primordial Qi circulation efficiency.
The price Wang Guishan paid was that the elder of the alchemy room discovered that more materials were consumed, so he called Wang Guishan over and scolded him a few times.
Wang Guishan remained silent, quietly accepting the punishment.
Under the investment of these resources, the little girl passed the selection smoothly and ranked in the middle among the disciples who passed the selection in that session—her talent was really just like that.
But Wang Guishan was very happy, the little girl officially entered, and in the future became his fellow disciple.
The most important thing is, she can live in the outer sect on the mountain, and he wouldn’t have to wait many days each time to come down the mountain to see her.
He wanted the little girl to join the Alchemy Hall, so that he and she could be together day and night.